Thrust measurement method verification and analytical studies on a liquid-fueled pulse detonation engine

In order to test the feasibility of a new thrust stand system based on impulse thrust measurement method, a liquid-fueled pulse detonation engine (PDE) is designed and built. Thrust performance of the engine is obtained by direct thrust measurement with a force transducer and indirect thrust measurement with an eddy current displacement sensor (ECDS). These two sets of thrust data are compared with each other to verify the accuracy of the thrust performance. Then thrust data measured by the new thrust stand system are compared with the verified thrust data to test its feasibility. The results indicate that thrust data from the force transducer and ECDS system are consistent with each other within the range of measurement error. Though the thrust data from the impulse thrust measurement system is a litter lower than that from the force transducer due to the axial momentum losses of the detonation jet, the impulse thrust measurement method is valid when applied to measure the averaged thrust of PDE. Analytical models of PDE are also discussed in this paper. The analytical thrust performance is higher than the experimental data due to ignoring the losses during the deflagration to detonation transition process. Effect of equivalence ratio on the engine thrust performance is investigated by utilizing the modified analytical model. Thrust reaches maximum at the equivalence ratio of about 1.1.